kxs401:violentsalvation: I've known grown adults who believe that young earth / dinosaur shiat. They were otherwise educated, one I would go so far as to say he is brilliant, but he believes this shiat. I don't farking understand it.

I know a nuclear engineer (by training, not by profession any longer) who believes this crap. He's a religious nutball, of course. He was posting on Facebook about how it's likely that God put fossils on the Earth for his own purposes, or something. Oy.

Gordon Bennett:so let's take the evangelical christian view as given, at least the core of it and forgive my jewish arse for getting a detail wrong -

Chrsitians have no farking idea how their theology works due to it being a religion by committee. A camel of a faith, you might say. Things were so bad that the Catholic Church invented Limbo for all those unbaptized babies to keep the distraught mothers from telling the Pope to go fark himself. They've tried bolting on other exceptions, such as the Noble Savage idea that people who never heard The Word could not be condemned as they had not refused salvation.

The thing is, until recently, you didn't question the leaders of your church under pain of excommunication or death. Now that religions have been castrated and muzzled in the west, people can question their church leaders and the accumulated cruft of thousands of years of "because I said so!!!!" is breaking the camel's poor back.

kazikian:I can never understand why anyone would think evolution is incompatible with religion. God could very well have created creatures that are able to evolve to better suit their needs as time passes and things change. If anything that would seem to add to the glory of God; I mean, not only is He able to create life, but He creates life that continues to function and adapt independently of further supernatural meddling. How cool is that, right?

The second part of that, if true, is upsetting even with it being a private school. Teaching your students to be that disrespectful to your parents doesn't sound particularly Christian and I can't imagine even a strict whackoo private school enjoying the PR fallout.

Ranger Rover:I sound fat: Spiralmonkey: That is too scary to be snarky about.

/ just cause YOUR religion wears white coats when they conjecture about "facts".....

THIS is interesting. I have a feeling you're going to get jumped on here about this, but getting in real quick to say that I think you do have something of a point. Federal food legislation, for example, based on bad science, has resulted in dozens if not hundreds of restrictive laws and contributed directly to our country's obesity problem. When someone pointed out to me a month or two ago that science is the equivalent of a secular altar at which this country's academic elite worship, I initially reacted with something along the lines of, "okay, crazy." But it gave me pause, because although not a good analogy in all respects, there is definitely a tendency of some to just go, "Science, science, science, I can't hear you," the same way that the other side goes, "God, God, God, I can't hear you." Something to think about, at least for me.

The biggest difference, though, is that science is dynamic and tends to reverse itself in the face of irrefutable proof, whereas religious beliefs are static - based on incontrovertible truths - and don't. What would you say to that?

I know you weren't asking me, but Id say that there is a big difference between science and the FDA or any other bureaucracy.

Gordon Bennett:everyone! that means everyone in the old testament, including the prophets. Abraham must be suffering in hell, as must noah, isaac, even moses was able to, thanks to god, lead the hebrews out of slavery and to the promised land, but still with no jesus not a one of them could escape the fires of hell.

From what i remember God had some sort of agreement where the jewish priest would symbolically take your sins and put them onto a goat and then the goat would be sacrifices or chased off. Hence the term 'scape goat'. Jesus was just a form of permanent scapegoat.

Death Eats a Cracker:kazikian: I can never understand why anyone would think evolution is incompatible with religion. God could very well have created creatures that are able to evolve to better suit their needs as time passes and things change. If anything that would seem to add to the glory of God; I mean, not only is He able to create life, but He creates life that continues to function and adapt independently of further supernatural meddling. How cool is that, right?

Just stop.

Why? This seems like a completely reasonable worldview. That leads to the ability to teach kids basic scientific principles while adhering to the glory of the creator, whatever that may mean to individual people. Really, at this point, what better could you ask for? That we stomp out freedom of religion altogether? I think kazikian's statement gets to the heart of the best of all compromises, (although doctrine means it may not bear out in all individual cases) - that science is taught in the science classroom and religion in the religion classroom (or church). Let smart kids draw their own conclusions - they will.

Steak_Cake_Sause:I know you weren't asking me, but Id say that there is a big difference between science and the FDA or any other bureaucracy.

You got that right, for sure. But overall I guess FDA policies are just an indication of how quickly people are willing to legislate while the ink on the scientific studies is still busy just trying to dry.

Ranger Rover:Death Eats a Cracker: kazikian: I can never understand why anyone would think evolution is incompatible with religion. God could very well have created creatures that are able to evolve to better suit their needs as time passes and things change. If anything that would seem to add to the glory of God; I mean, not only is He able to create life, but He creates life that continues to function and adapt independently of further supernatural meddling. How cool is that, right?

Just stop.

Why? This seems like a completely reasonable worldview. That leads to the ability to teach kids basic scientific principles while adhering to the glory of the creator, whatever that may mean to individual people. Really, at this point, what better could you ask for? That we stomp out freedom of religion altogether? I think kazikian's statement gets to the heart of the best of all compromises, (although doctrine means it may not bear out in all individual cases) - that science is taught in the science classroom and religion in the religion classroom (or church). Let smart kids draw their own conclusions - they will.

Part of this worldview that you speak of consists of ancient mythology created by people who didn't know where the sun went at night.

Ranger Rover:Death Eats a Cracker: kazikian: I can never understand why anyone would think evolution is incompatible with religion. God could very well have created creatures that are able to evolve to better suit their needs as time passes and things change. If anything that would seem to add to the glory of God; I mean, not only is He able to create life, but He creates life that continues to function and adapt independently of further supernatural meddling. How cool is that, right?

Just stop.

Why? This seems like a completely reasonable worldview. That leads to the ability to teach kids basic scientific principles while adhering to the glory of the creator, whatever that may mean to individual people. Really, at this point, what better could you ask for? That we stomp out freedom of religion altogether? I think kazikian's statement gets to the heart of the best of all compromises, (although doctrine means it may not bear out in all individual cases) - that science is taught in the science classroom and religion in the religion classroom (or church). Let smart kids draw their own conclusions - they will.

Ranger Rover:Steak_Cake_Sause: I know you weren't asking me, but Id say that there is a big difference between science and the FDA or any other bureaucracy.

You got that right, for sure. But overall I guess FDA policies are just an indication of how quickly people are willing to legislate while the ink on the scientific studies is still busy just trying to dry.

Sad but true. There are blind-faithful science enthusiasts that muck things up.

It seems that good science takes about a decade of peer review before it makes it to text books. Individual studies are just indicators, at best.

Ed Grubermann:Gordon Bennett: so let's take the evangelical christian view as given, at least the core of it and forgive my jewish arse for getting a detail wrong -

Chrsitians have no farking idea how their theology works due to it being a religion by committee. A camel of a faith, you might say. Things were so bad that the Catholic Church invented Limbo for all those unbaptized babies to keep the distraught mothers from telling the Pope to go fark himself. They've tried bolting on other exceptions, such as the Noble Savage idea that people who never heard The Word could not be condemned as they had not refused salvation.

The thing is, until recently, you didn't question the leaders of your church under pain of excommunication or death. Now that religions have been castrated and muzzled in the west, people can question their church leaders and the accumulated cruft of thousands of years of "because I said so!!!!" is breaking the camel's poor back.

Why do people always want to pin this bullshiat on the Catholics? While they (like all other religions) have created some pretty dubious doctrine to shore up theological conflicts in their religion, they're not the ones running around the globe teaching young earth creationism bullshiat theory or in general crapping all over science. Quite the opposite actually - I went to a catholic school (Jesuit) growing up and was taught evolutionary theory and told in no uncertain terms that it was true and that it didn't conflict with a belief in God.

While I generally take a dim view of all organized religion, let's be honest here - the real problem is the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian sects in the US. They are pants on head retarded.

Trust me, there are plenty of things to shake your fists at the Catholics for - but supporting the theory that Jesus rode a dinosaur is not one of them.

kxs401:violentsalvation: I've known grown adults who believe that young earth / dinosaur shiat. They were otherwise educated, one I would go so far as to say he is brilliant, but he believes this shiat. I don't farking understand it.

I know a nuclear engineer (by training, not by profession any longer) who believes this crap. He's a religious nutball, of course. He was posting on Facebook about how it's likely that God put fossils on the Earth for his own purposes, or something. Oy.

When you have to say the entire universe is a lie created by your God to protect the absolute truth of a book, you have to wonder about who would worship such a god of lies and deceit.

TwistedFark:Ed Grubermann: Gordon Bennett: so let's take the evangelical christian view as given, at least the core of it and forgive my jewish arse for getting a detail wrong -

Chrsitians have no farking idea how their theology works due to it being a religion by committee. A camel of a faith, you might say. Things were so bad that the Catholic Church invented Limbo for all those unbaptized babies to keep the distraught mothers from telling the Pope to go fark himself. They've tried bolting on other exceptions, such as the Noble Savage idea that people who never heard The Word could not be condemned as they had not refused salvation.

The thing is, until recently, you didn't question the leaders of your church under pain of excommunication or death. Now that religions have been castrated and muzzled in the west, people can question their church leaders and the accumulated cruft of thousands of years of "because I said so!!!!" is breaking the camel's poor back.

Why do people always want to pin this bullshiat on the Catholics? While they (like all other religions) have created some pretty dubious doctrine to shore up theological conflicts in their religion, they're not the ones running around the globe teaching young earth creationism bullshiat theory or in general crapping all over science. Quite the opposite actually - I went to a catholic school (Jesuit) growing up and was taught evolutionary theory and told in no uncertain terms that it was true and that it didn't conflict with a belief in God.

While I generally take a dim view of all organized religion, let's be honest here - the real problem is the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian sects in the US. They are pants on head retarded.

Trust me, there are plenty of things to shake your fists at the Catholics for - but supporting the theory that Jesus rode a dinosaur is not one of them.

Ranger Rover:Steak_Cake_Sause: As a compromise, it would relegate religion to the ever shrinking 'God of the Gaps.'

Have not heard this before, but it sounds interesting. What does it mean?

In case you feel the temptation to send me a "let me google that for you" meme, I will google it myself. But interested in your take on it.

Okay, did. And glad I did. This is exactly why I justify "time-wasting" on fark - I usually learn a thing or two.

Very good argument. And I think some sort of anticipation of it is why I tried to qualify my statement with the fact that doctrinally this compromise would be impracticable in many cases. But is kazikian's statement really necessitating a "God of the Gaps" argument, or could it maybe be a more God IN the Gaps argument? Am I just stupidly playing around with prepositions, or does that make any kind of sense?

Lsherm:Also, this apparently is a very small private school, so mock, but there shouldn't be outrage. Stupid is as stupid does.

Yeah, but these are the private schools my Governor (Jindal) and legislature is appropriating tax dollars to without holding them to the same standards as public schools. One school in question consists of windowless portable buildings and a strong curriculum of Jesus DVDs. I really, really wish I were making this up.

The state is so poor in education that the argument of allowing parents to send their kids to sectarian or snake-handling schools in order to achieve a better quality of education is what drove this. But let me reiterate - these schools are not being held to any standard, and as of right now are licking chops waiting to bilk the government for as much money as however many students they can cram in.

Look, I went to an awesome Catholic school. We were taught the Classics, religion in not such a fervent light, ACTUAL SCIENCE, and though I was told there would be no math, we got real versions of that, too. But many of the schools lining at Jindal's trough are fly-by-night sh*tholes that issue tests like the one alleged here. And once again - because I can't stress this enough - the voucher program was wildly popular even when it became clear that many of these schools weren't being audited for effectiveness and funds the way the public ones are.

This state breaks my heart. New Orleans, for all her problems, is actually a wonderful cultural center and among the most unique places in the States. Blue as all hell, too - even the white folks. The suburbs, while Red, are at least populated by people who have decent jobs and merely want their kids to succeed in a properly academic religious school like my parents did. But then there's the rest of the state wanting that one asshole Sunday school teacher we all had as children to be responsible for teaching their kids full-time. With Jindal trying to position his TeaPubican cred for 2016, they got it. And once he starts really ramping up the speeches, he'll claim credit for giving Louisiana families the opportunity of giving their kids a quality education while no one in the 'liberal media' will bother to mention that it's often about Noah saving the ecosystem instead of those kids being taught fundamental life science.

Fark Louisiana. But please don't nuke my city from orbit. We're pretty cool. Hell, it's Jazz Fest right now. You'd be killing hundreds of thousands of tourists who are just here to Get Down.

Strolpol:I think the thing that hits me most is the "were you there" refutation, which would single-handedly nullify most of history.

Seriously though, I would tell them that I would much rather dinosaurs have lived millions of years ago rather than having to accept that God planted millions of fossils with the express purpose of trying to dick with scientists and test the true faith of believers.

/I mean really, do you WANT your deity to have the mentality of a psychotic child?

Is that better or worse than believing that your deity got really pissy one day and decided to drown the ENTIRE world and then tries to make up for it by giving us rainbows as a token phenomenon promising to not do it again? I mean just from a theological standpoint, God is perfect and supposedly we were made in his image, meaning we are all little Gods just without the powers, but we manage to fark up badly enough to warrant global genocide. If that act was okay for him to perform, and we are all little hims, why wasn't whatever we were doing okay too? If he couldn't just make us so that we weren't so wicked in the first place, because we all had to be little [powerless] gods, what does that say about him? And if our wickedness exists because it's a part of him too (which the mass execution indicates) then why is he so pissed at us? What did he expect? How shiatty is it to hold us to a level of accountability that he can't even live up to even with his ability to know everything always, everywhere, forever.

Ranger Rover:Ranger Rover: Steak_Cake_Sause: As a compromise, it would relegate religion to the ever shrinking 'God of the Gaps.'

Have not heard this before, but it sounds interesting. What does it mean?

In case you feel the temptation to send me a "let me google that for you" meme, I will google it myself. But interested in your take on it.

Okay, did. And glad I did. This is exactly why I justify "time-wasting" on fark - I usually learn a thing or two.

Very good argument. And I think some sort of anticipation of it is why I tried to qualify my statement with the fact that doctrinally this compromise would be impracticable in many cases. But is kazikian's statement really necessitating a "God of the Gaps" argument, or could it maybe be a more God IN the Gaps argument? Am I just stupidly playing around with prepositions, or does that make any kind of sense?

kazikian:I can never understand why anyone would think evolution is incompatible with religion. God could very well have created creatures that are able to evolve to better suit their needs as time passes and things change. If anything that would seem to add to the glory of God; I mean, not only is He able to create life, but He creates life that continues to function and adapt independently of further supernatural meddling. How cool is that, right?

(Hope i dont fark up the quoting here)

I think you are playing with prepositions. But I see what you mean.

This may be the ultimate gap. This is where science and religion (to me in my understanding) have pushed each other.

Science hasnt settled on the "Theory of Everything" yet. Last I read they can calculate everything back to less than a small fraction of a second after the big bang. There are a lot of unresolved issues, like are the laws of the universe contingent on themselves or are there a huge number of universes with varying laws, etc. (I cant go any further with this, I'm a geologist, not a theoretical physicist).

Religion.... err... Christianity accepting of science would say that the universe, big bang and all the laws, evolution, etc are caused by God. And God is eternal; without beginning or end.

To me, both are lacking. God requires explanation beyond 'hes just there.' And of coarse that means the Big Bang requires explanation beyond 'it just happened.'

So to me the best anyone can say is 'we dont know.' But that doesnt imply a creator, especially one as specific as the God of Abraham. Thats why I'm an atheist.

No, I just wanted to point out what a crowded place that hill would have been if either time travelers or vampires (whe are kinda iike time travelers who can only go forward) existed. In either case, if you were there you would need your own weapon

Incidentally, assuming the blood didn't kill them cuz holy and all that, how much would a vampire LOVE Jesus? Essentially immortal, self healing, he's the ubiquitous bottomless drink cup, but fresh blood.

Ranger Rover:Ranger Rover: Steak_Cake_Sause: As a compromise, it would relegate religion to the ever shrinking 'God of the Gaps.'

Have not heard this before, but it sounds interesting. What does it mean?

In case you feel the temptation to send me a "let me google that for you" meme, I will google it myself. But interested in your take on it.

Okay, did. And glad I did. This is exactly why I justify "time-wasting" on fark - I usually learn a thing or two.

Very good argument. And I think some sort of anticipation of it is why I tried to qualify my statement with the fact that doctrinally this compromise would be impracticable in many cases. But is kazikian's statement really necessitating a "God of the Gaps" argument, or could it maybe be a more God IN the Gaps argument? Am I just stupidly playing around with prepositions, or does that make any kind of sense?

Same thing. It only applies to that particular type of religious belief though.

There are plenty of people who can learn about evolutionary biology to broaden their understanding of science and then go to their church/synagogue/mosque/favorite tree/whatever and try to figure out how to find peace and be less of a jerk to other people. There really doesn't need to be a conflict between science and spirituality.

They think the King James version of bible is without flaw. I can't, for the life of me, understand how they come to this conclusion. Seriously, how can anyone who knows the history of how the bible came to be, believe that any version is the infallible truth?

Ed Grubermann:Gordon Bennett: so let's take the evangelical christian view as given, at least the core of it and forgive my jewish arse for getting a detail wrong -

Chrsitians have no farking idea how their theology works due to it being a religion by committee. A camel of a faith, you might say. Things were so bad that the Catholic Church invented Limbo for all those unbaptized babies to keep the distraught mothers from telling the Pope to go fark himself. They've tried bolting on other exceptions, such as the Noble Savage idea that people who never heard The Word could not be condemned as they had not refused salvation.

The thing is, until recently, you didn't question the leaders of your church under pain of excommunication or death. Now that religions have been castrated and muzzled in the west, people can question their church leaders and the accumulated cruft of thousands of years of "because I said so!!!!" is breaking the camel's poor back.

There is a good argument that the 1500+ years between Rome contracting Christianity and say the Renaissance, the entire stalling of any significant technologicial, economic, political, and social progress was halted in and around Europe to avoid breaking all the inherent contradictions inside Christianity (especially as a state faith, as opposed to a grasping of straws from the poor, oppressed and needy that somehow after they die things will finally get better)

They think the King James version of bible is without flaw. I can't, for the life of me, understand how they come to this conclusion. Seriously, how can anyone who knows the history of how the bible came to be, believe that any version is the infallible truth?

No, I just wanted to point out what a crowded place that hill would have been if either time travelers or vampires (whe are kinda iike time travelers who can only go forward) existed. In either case, if you were there you would need your own weapon

Incidentally, assuming the blood didn't kill them cuz holy and all that, how much would a vampire LOVE Jesus? Essentially immortal, self healing, he's the ubiquitous bottomless drink cup, but fresh blood.

Haven't you seen the penitent man? Time travelers generally can only view the past ; )

wallywam1:Ranger Rover: Ranger Rover: Steak_Cake_Sause: As a compromise, it would relegate religion to the ever shrinking 'God of the Gaps.'

Have not heard this before, but it sounds interesting. What does it mean?

In case you feel the temptation to send me a "let me google that for you" meme, I will google it myself. But interested in your take on it.

Okay, did. And glad I did. This is exactly why I justify "time-wasting" on fark - I usually learn a thing or two.

Very good argument. And I think some sort of anticipation of it is why I tried to qualify my statement with the fact that doctrinally this compromise would be impracticable in many cases. But is kazikian's statement really necessitating a "God of the Gaps" argument, or could it maybe be a more God IN the Gaps argument? Am I just stupidly playing around with prepositions, or does that make any kind of sense?

Same thing. It only applies to that particular type of religious belief though.

There are plenty of people who can learn about evolutionary biology to broaden their understanding of science and then go to their church/synagogue/mosque/favorite tree/whatever and try to figure out how to find peace and be less of a jerk to other people. There really doesn't need to be a conflict between science and spirituality.

Well, there is kind of a conflict in that science attempts to explain everything and so does spirituality/religion. At best they are describing the same thing.

I've only known a few creationists and in my few conversations with them I was struck with how they viewed evolution and science. For them, at least the ones I spoke to, if evolution were true and the bible was fallible it would mean that there would be no purpose to life. It either had to all be true, or none of it was true, which is just a ludicrous set of conditions if you ask me.

But they never disputed evolution on any sort of scientific grounds. They never spoke of intelligent design, or god burying fossils or any of that nonsense, it was simply "I don't believe that because it means we'd have no purpose". Their view of the world was completely centred around there being a god that created the Earth as it was and made a heaven and a hell. They couldn't part with this belief any more than they could part with the marrow in their bones. It was true ignorance, but ignorance coming from a sense of self-preservation.

No, I just wanted to point out what a crowded place that hill would have been if either time travelers or vampires (whe are kinda iike time travelers who can only go forward) existed. In either case, if you were there you would need your own weapon

Incidentally, assuming the blood didn't kill them cuz holy and all that, how much would a vampire LOVE Jesus? Essentially immortal, self healing, he's the ubiquitous bottomless drink cup, but fresh blood.

Haven't you seen the penitent man? Time travelers generally can only view the past ; )[encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com image 198x255]

I have not, but it' on "the list" now, Incidentally, I think this is possible (with FTL travel and good optics) get ahead of the lit leaving earth then turn around and watch for a while, you will be watching the past =D

Here are the basics, for me, and the heart of the question:1) Not teaching kids basic science sucks. It puts our kids fundamentally behind children of other developed nations, and we're already far behind enough that there needs to be cause for concern. The nation that gave the world the polio vaccine, the car, the television, the moon landing, the Internet, and countless other achievements of the twentieth and the twenty-first century should be ashamed of itself for the obstructions it now wants to put in the way of children who could continue this tradition.2) Freedom of speech, association, and religion are among the most venerable protections our Constitution offers, and in a world where they are increasingly threatened by even the most "developed" countries among us, we should fight for our status as guarantors of these rights at all costs. These are among the most basic protections a civilized country can offer its citizens, and Americans should be proud that we have led the way in these protections being adopted by any country who has modeled its constitution after ours, and these are many.3) Going about reconciling these basic objectives is going to be difficult. It just is. There's no wishing this away. The best, maybe the only, way this can be achieved, is by both sides being willing to afford some sort of compromise; at the least being willing to hear each other out. It is no less a tragedy that certain citizens want to teach their children (especially in a private school setting, no less) that God made the world than it is that other citizens want to force them to teach their children that God did not. If it is an invasion of privacy when religious values are mandated in personal choices, it is no less an invasion of privacy when the absence of religious values are mandated in personal choices.

Gordon Bennett:Awright farkers, please forgive me for mistakes in this post but i'm getting a migraine and am half-blind from the aura at the moment.

I don't want to thread-jack, but: When the aura appears, I start chugging coffee. Two or three cups before the aura fades will often stop the migraine in it's tracks, or at least dampen it. Other farkers say energy drinks have the same effect.

Uchiha_Cycliste: Is that better or worse than believing that your deity got really pissy one day and decided to drown the ENTIRE world and then tries to make up for it by giving us rainbows as a token phenomenon promising to not do it again?The earth was wicked -- he was god. Don't tell him what he can and cant do.

I mean just from a theological standpoint, God is perfect and supposedly we were made in his image, meaning we are all little Gods just without the powers, but we manage to fark up badly enough to warrant global genocide.Free will and all. And if god really is a god i dont think he would look at it as 'global genocide' -- thats how YOU see it. He might just see it as rearranging an office.

If that act was okay for him to perform, and we are all little hims, why wasn't whatever we were doing okay too? If he couldn't just make us so that we weren't so wicked in the first place, because we all had to be little [powerless] gods, what does that say about him? And if our wickedness exists because it's a part of him too (which the mass execution indicates) then why is he so pissed at us? Some would suggest he isn't pissed at all. Heres what John Calvin said about it:God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.So he doesnt really have any dickish intent behind it exept to prove how farking bad ass he is? I'm just saying -- if you know the will and whim and reason of god then he sort of ceases to be. I guess the explanation would be along the lines of 'if god tried to explain it to you your head would pop'

What did he expect? How shiatty is it to hold us to a level of accountability that he can't even live up to even with his ability to know everything always, everywhere, forever.He is god. -- he doesn't have accountability.

I'm just saying -- God doesn't have to do any of that stuff. He's god. Your values of right and wrong and good and bad are not necessarily his and its crazy to think that a god would be constrained by human logic.

I'm just saying -- if your really going to ask questions about the nature of god don't do it with an anthropomorphized dude in a chair in the sky version some fundie organized religion pimps out.

Ranger Rover:The biggest difference, though, is that science is dynamic and tends to reverse itself in the face of irrefutable proof, whereas religious beliefs are static - based on incontrovertible truths - and don't. What would you say to that?

That's not the only differenc e(or the biggest one) Science is beliefs based on evidence amd confirmation (bascally the scientific method) the other is by definition belief based on the ack of evidence. Because if you did have evidence you couldn't have faith. Faith requires belief without proof. They are diametrically opposed methodologies for coming to a conclusion It's why scientists look down upon the religious with such disdain. Person A says I believe this because I can demonstrate it's validity. Person B says I believe this because I have faith and there is no way to prove it's validity... therefore it must be right.

Ranger Rover:3) Going about reconciling these basic objectives is going to be difficult. It just is. There's no wishing this away. The best, maybe the only, way this can be achieved, is by both sides being willing to afford some sort of compromise; at the least being willing to hear each other out. It is no less a tragedy that certain citizens want to teach their children (especially in a private school setting, no less) that God made the world than it is that other citizens want to force them to teach their children that God did not. If it is an invasion of privacy when religious values are mandated in personal choices, it is no less an invasion of privacy when the absence of religious values are mandated in personal choices.

Who's religious tenets do we teach in public schools? The only fair answer, the only answer that does not violate the Constitution, the only answer that does not tell believers in religion X that, "no, those guys over in religion Y are correct, you're going to hell, sorry" is to stick to secular facts and theories. If people want to teach their kids that Raven freed humans from the great clams, they can do it at home.

Steak_Cake_Sause:wallywam1: Ranger Rover: Ranger Rover: Steak_Cake_Sause: As a compromise, it would relegate religion to the ever shrinking 'God of the Gaps.'

Have not heard this before, but it sounds interesting. What does it mean?

In case you feel the temptation to send me a "let me google that for you" meme, I will google it myself. But interested in your take on it.

Okay, did. And glad I did. This is exactly why I justify "time-wasting" on fark - I usually learn a thing or two.

Very good argument. And I think some sort of anticipation of it is why I tried to qualify my statement with the fact that doctrinally this compromise would be impracticable in many cases. But is kazikian's statement really necessitating a "God of the Gaps" argument, or could it maybe be a more God IN the Gaps argument? Am I just stupidly playing around with prepositions, or does that make any kind of sense?

Same thing. It only applies to that particular type of religious belief though.

There are plenty of people who can learn about evolutionary biology to broaden their understanding of science and then go to their church/synagogue/mosque/favorite tree/whatever and try to figure out how to find peace and be less of a jerk to other people. There really doesn't need to be a conflict between science and spirituality.

Well, there is kind of a conflict in that science attempts to explain everything and so does spirituality/religion. At best they are describing the same thing.

I guess my point is that neither one should attempt to explain everything. Imagine trying to understand art using only science. What is the chemical composition of this paint? What wavelength of light is reflected off the canvas? Those questions don't help you understand art any more than Jesus riding around on a dinosaur helps you understand science.